Retaliatory motivation enhances attributions of hostility when people process ambiguous social stimuli

We hypothesized that provocation and readiness to aggress (Retaliatory Motivation) would increase the tendency to construe the ambiguous actions of others as reflecting hostile intent. Male undergraduates were either verbally provoked or not provoked by a male experimenter and half were led to believe that they would be allowed to retaliate anonymously against the provoker in the form of a potentially damaging written evaluation. Participants then rated the hostility and aggressive intent of the characters in brief ambiguous scenarios of interpersonal conflict. According to prediction, men who were provoked and anticipated retaliation against their provoker rated the scenarios as containing hostility and aggression to a significantly greater extent than did non‐provoked or merely provoked participants. Results are discussed within a motivation‐based affective relevance model of perception. Aggr. Behav. 29:155–172, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Children's reasoning about responses to peer aggression: Victim's and witness's expected and prescribed behaviors

This research examined children's reasoning about expected (i.e., what a peer would do) and prescribed (i.e., what a peer should do) responses to unprovoked, intentional aggressive actions in two contexts: as a victim of such a transgression and as a witness to the incident. Physical harm and property damage items were used in a structured interview format. There were 90 subjects drawn from three elementary school grades (2nd, 4th, and 6th). Children differentiated between the expected and prescribed responses of peers and significant developmental differences in children's evaluations were found. Although the majority of the subjects in all grades denounced retaliation on the basis of concerns about others' welfare, older children stated that peers were likely to retaliate against the perpetrator nonetheless. Across different contexts, older children's responses appeared to reveal a greater independence from authority in negotiating peer interactions. In evaluating the witness's responses to aggressive acts, younger children's expected and prescribed responses were less disparate than that of the older children. The utility of including different vantage points of the child in examining children's social reasoning about aggression and the application of the present findings to social information-processing models are discussed. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Beyond the aggregate score: Using multilevel modeling to examine trajectories of laboratory-measured aggression

Aggression is often measured in the laboratory as an iterative “tit-for-tat” sequence, in which two aggressors repeatedly inflict retaliatory harm upon each other. Aggression researchers typically quantify aggression by aggregating across participants’ aggressive behavior on such iterative encounters. However, this “aggregate approach” cannot capture trajectories of aggression across the iterative encounters and needlessly eliminates rich information in the form of within-participant variability. As an alternative approach, I used multilevel modeling (MLM) to examine the slope of aggression across the 25-trial Taylor Aggression Paradigm as a function of trait physical aggression and experimental provocation. Across two preregistered studies (combined N = 392), participants exhibited a modest decline in aggression. This decline reflected a reciprocal strategy, in which participants responded to an initially-provocative opponent with greater aggression that then decreased over time to match their opponent's declining levels of aggression. Against predictions, trait physical aggression and experimental provocation did not affect participants’ overall trajectories of aggression. Yet, exploratory analyses suggested that the participants’ tendency to reciprocate their opponent's aggression with more aggression was greater at higher levels of trait physical aggression and attenuated among participants who had already been experimentally provoked by their opponent. These findings (a) illustrate several advantages of an MLM approach as compared with an aggregate approach to iterative laboratory aggression paradigms; (b) demonstrate that the magnifying effects of trait aggression and experimental provocation on laboratory aggression are stable over brief time-frames; and (c) suggest that modeling the opponent's behavior on such tasks reveals important information.     

What stops revenge taking? Effects of observed emotional reactions on revenge seeking

What reaction stops revenge taking? Four experiments (total N = 191) examined this question where the victim of an interpersonal transgression could observe the offender's reaction (anger, sadness, pain, or calm) to a retributive noise punishment. We compared the punishment intensity selected by the participant before and after seeing the offender's reaction. Seeing the opponent in pain reduced subsequent punishment most strongly, while displays of sadness and verbal indications of suffering had no appeasing effect. Expression of anger about a retributive punishment did not increase revenge seeking relative to a calm reaction, even when the anger response was disambiguated as being angry with the punisher. It is concluded that the expression of pain is the most effective emotional display for the reduction of retaliatory aggression. The findings are discussed in light of recent research on reactive aggression and retributive justice.     

The persistence of attack satiation in female golden hamsters

Female hamsters were allowed to attack a series of target hamsters until they reached a criterion of attack satiation. Following delays of 0, 24, or 48 hr they were then presented with a novel “probe” target. Attacks on the probe target were reduced to 26% of baseline at 0 delay and had returned to 71% of baseline by 48 hr. The number of attacks necessary to achieve satiation criterion increased then decreased over the three test occasions, suggesting that habituationlike processes may contribute to, but cannot wholly account for, the satiation effect.     

Equity and derogation of those against whom we have aggressed

Casting the classic provocation-retaliation paradigm in an equity framework, we hypothesized that persons realizing their retribution was excessive would derogate their victim, but only when they did not anticipate an opportunity to compensate her. After retaliating against a peer who had harshly evaluated their essays, 40 female undergraduates were informed that either a serious or mild misfortune had recently been suffered by their partner, and were led to believe that at the outset of the experiment they had carelessly overlooked this “mitigating” information. Half the participants anticipated a later opportunity to do a favor for the other woman. Regardless of the severity of the mitigating information the women were more negative in their evaluation of the partner when they did not anticipate a subsequent opportunity to do the partner a favor. The results are discussed in terms of equity restoration in reactions to having aggressed. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Anxiety sensitivity and retaliatory aggressive behavior in research volunteers

An important focus of recent aggression research has been to identify personality variables that influence the expression of aggression. One such variable may be anxiety sensitivity (AS). Individuals high in AS fear unpleasant anxiety-related physiological sensations and perhaps physiological arousal in general. Accordingly, people high in AS are motivated to avoid situations that produce these sensations. With respect to aggressive encounters, an intense attack by an opponent involves significant physiological arousal. High anxiety-sensitive individuals may therefore attempt to decrease the intensity of the interaction by responding in a non-aggressive or conciliatory manner. To test this possibility, 112 community volunteers completed a measure of AS and a well-validated laboratory task designed to assess aggressive behavior. As predicted, an inverse relation between AS and extreme aggressive responding was found. Specifically, as AS increases, retaliatory aggression is less likely after intense attack by an opponent.     

Anger arousal,deindividuation, and aggression

We tested the notion that angered persons' aggression would be increased through a process of excitation transfer when they are deindividuated, but that individuated subjects would be most aggressive in circumstances under which they could use the information that they had ingested an arousing drug as a pretext for their aggression. Sixty-two male undergraduates participated under either deindividuated or individuated conditions, ingested either 350 mg of caffeine or a placebo, were informed that they had either taken a stimulant or a nonarousing drug, and were all angered by a confederate. According to prediction, when deindividuated and aroused by caffeine the amount of noxious stimulation subjects delivered to the provocateur was greater if they believed that the drug they had taken was nonarousing than if they thought it was a stimulant; in contrast, individuated subjects' aggression was greater when aroused subjects believed the drug was a stimulant. The results are discussed in terms of excitation transfer and the effect of aggression inhibition on the use of information about one's arousal.     

Real-life revenge may not effectively deter norm violations

ABSTRACT

The current article examined the characteristics of real-life revenge acts. A demographically diverse sample of avengers described autobiographical revenge acts and the preceding offense. They rated the severity of both acts, the time before taking revenge, and motives for the timing. Independent raters also rated the severity of both acts and coded the domains. Results revealed that real-life revenge is (1) by and large equally common as revealed by lab-based studies on revenge, but (2) is usually a delayed response, and (3) although similar to offenses in severity (according to independent parties), it is dissimilar in the domain. These characteristics contradict manifestations of revenge as studied in lab research (e.g., as a response that must take place immediately and in the same domain). These discrepancies suggest that not all real-life instances of revenge are optimally suited to serve a deterrence function and that other motives may underlie more destructive revenge acts.     

Psychological essentialism and cultural variation: children's beliefs about aggression in the United States and South Africa

The present study compared indigenous South African versus African‐American schoolchildren's beliefs about aggression. Eighty 7–9 year olds (40 from each country) participated in interviews in which they were asked to make inferences about the stability, malleability, and causal origins of aggressive behaviour. Although a minority of participants from both countries endorsed essentialist beliefs about aggression, South African children were more likely than American children to do so. Results also revealed some degree of coherence in children's patterns of beliefs about aggression, such that children responded across superficially different measures in ways that appear theoretically consistent. The authors consider these findings in light of debates concerning the role of cultural forces in shaping person perception. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

攻击者的注意偏向与归因偏向及其关系

在攻击者的认知偏向中,注意偏向与归因偏向尤为引人注目。攻击者常偏向于注意敌意性的刺激,并会对模棱两可的情境作出敌意性的解释。二者的关系存在注意优先模型与解释优先模型两种可能性,注意优先模型认为注意过程先于解释过程,解释优先模型则相反。两种假设各有论据支持,而攻击者注意偏向与归因偏向的关系尚无定论。今后的研究当改进实验方法、运用多种技术从理论和应用两方面更深入地探讨攻击者的这二种偏向及其关系。     

Peer and cyber aggression in secondary school students: the role of moral disengagement,hostile attribution bias,and outcome expectancies

This study investigated the relationship between cognitive mechanisms, applied by people to rationalize and justify harmful acts, and engagement in traditional peer and cyber aggression among school children. We examined the contribution of moral disengagement (MD), hostile attribution bias, and outcome expectancies, and we further explored the individual contribution of each MD mechanism. Our aim was to identify shared and unique cognitive factors of the two forms of aggression. Three hundred and thirty‐nine secondary school children completed self‐report measures that assessed MD, hostile attribution bias, outcome expectancies, and their roles and involvement in traditional and cyber aggression. We found that the MD total score positively related to both forms of peer‐directed aggression. Furthermore, traditional peer aggression positively related to children's moral justification, euphemistic language, displacement of responsibility and outcome expectancies, and negatively associated with hostile attribution bias. Moral justification also related positively to cyber aggression. Cyber aggression and cyber victimization were associated with high levels of traditional peer aggression and victimization, respectively. The results suggest that MD is a common feature of both traditional and cyber peer aggression, but it seems that traditional forms of aggression demand a higher level of rationalization or justification. Moreover, the data suggest that the expectation of positive outcomes from harmful behavior facilitates engagement in traditional peer aggression. The differential contribution of specific cognitive mechanisms indicates the need for future research to elaborate on the current findings, in order to advance theory and inform existing and future school interventions tackling aggression and bullying. Aggr. Behav. 36:81–94, 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

It's not just what you say,it's how you say it too. Adolescents' hostile attribution of intent and emotional responses to social comments

A highly prevalent and relevant situation in which adolescents have to interpret the intentions of others is when they interact with peers. We therefore successfully introduced a new paradigm to measure hostile attribution bias (HAB) and emotional responses to such social interactions and examined how it related to youth's aggressiveness. We presented 881 adolescents (M_age = 14.35 years; SD = 1.23; 48.1% male) with audio fragments of age-mates expressing social comments that varied in content (e.g., what the person says) and tone of voice (e.g., how the person says it). Participants' peers also reported on their aggressiveness. In general, added negativity of content and tone was driving the youth's intent attribution and emotional responses to the comments. In line with the Social Information Processing model, we found more hostile attribution of intent and more negative emotional responses of aggressive youth to ambiguous stimuli. Aggression was also related to more hostile intent attributions when both content and tone were negative. Unlike most studies on HAB, the aggression effects in the current study emerged for girls, but not boys. Implications of these results and future use of the experimental paradigm are discussed.     

Is bad intent negligible? Linking victim justice sensitivity,hostile attribution bias,and aggression

The hostile attribution bias (HAB) is a well‐established risk factor for aggression. It is considered part of the suspicious mindset that may cause highly victim‐justice sensitive individuals to behave uncooperatively. Thus, links of victim justice sensitivity (JS) with negative behavior, such as aggression, may be better explained by HAB. The present study tested this hypothesis in N = 279 German adolescents who rated their JS, HAB, and physical, relational, verbal, reactive, and proactive aggression. Victim JS predicted physical, relational, verbal, reactive, and proactive aggression when HAB was controlled. HAB only predicted physical and proactive aggression. There were no moderator effects. Injustice seems an important reason for aggression irrespective of whether or not it is intentionally caused, particularly among those high in victim JS. Thus, victim JS should be considered as a potential important risk factor for aggression and receive more attention by research on aggression and preventive efforts.

     

The Role of Self-Esteem and Social Influences in Aggressive Reactions to Interactional Injustice

Two experiments were conducted to examine the potential negative consequences an organization may face in response to perceptions of interactional injustice. Study 1 found that one potentially negative reaction to perceived injustice can be intended retaliation. In addition, study 1 found that individuals with high self-esteem are most likely to respond negatively to a perceived injustice by indicating that they plan to engage in a retaliatory response. Study 2 explored the effects of one’s situation on intended retaliation behavior. The results again indicate that perceptions of interactional injustice are strongly related to intended retaliation behavior. In addition, the study demonstrates that one’s group can have a significant influence on the perceptions of injustice and one’s subsequent reactions to these injustices.     

攻击动机对特质愤怒与反应性攻击关系的中介作用：一项纵向研究

特质愤怒是影响反应性攻击的重要人格因素, 反应性攻击的提出是基于攻击动机, 但是特质愤怒影响反应性攻击的动机机制尚不清楚。本研究假设特质愤怒可以通过增强反应性攻击的特异性动机(即敌意性动机)以及反应性攻击与主动性攻击的共同性动机(即道德准许动机)来纵向预测反应性攻击。为了检验该假设, 对5个省市共1007名大学生的特质愤怒、敌意归因偏向(代表敌意性动机)和道德推脱(代表道德准许动机)、反应性攻击与主动性攻击进行了3次追踪调查。结果显示：(1)在控制性别后, 第一个时间点的特质愤怒可以通过第二个时间点的敌意归因偏向和道德推脱预测第三个时间点的反应性攻击; (2)敌意归因偏向只能纵向预测反应性攻击, 而不能跨时间预测主动性攻击; (3)道德推脱可以纵向预测反应性攻击和主动性攻击。这一结果支持了特质愤怒影响反应性攻击的动机模型, 发展了人格与攻击关系的理论与研究, 对于揭示反应性攻击形成的动机机制具有积极作用。     

The role of intermittent food in the induction of attack in pigeons

The present experiments evaluated whether transitions in reinforcer probability are necessary to induce attack in pigeons. In Experiment I, three of six pigeons exposed to response-contingent constant-probability food schedules and a photograph of a conspecific as a target exhibited sustained postreinforcement attack on the target. The postreinforcement pattern of attack developed over the course of the experiment and was accompanied by a reduction in the rate of postreinforcement key pecking and an increase in the postreinforcement pause in key pecking. These effects on key pecking resulted in unprogrammed variations in the probability of reinforcement which may have been responsible for the induction of attack. In Experiment II, the attack-inducing properties of a constant-probability response-independent food schedule were compared to a periodic food schedule matched for overall rate of food delivery and to a no-food condition. In addition to attack, the spatial location of the subjects was monitored during each interfood interval. The periodic and aperiodic food schedules generated very different patterns of spatial location. Postfood attack was induced by both food schedules, although the constant-probability schedule induced attack in fewer birds. The no-food condition was not effective in inducing attack in any birds. These experiments indicate that intermittent food schedules without reductions in reinforcer probability are sufficient to induce attack in some pigeons, although not as effective as schedules with transitions in reinforcer probability.     

Functions of the vibrissae in the defensive and aggressive behavior of the rat

Removal of mystacial vibrissae for strange rats placed in an established rat colony produced reliable decrements in defensive boxing for these animals, and corresponding increases in freezing. In a subsequent experiment, removal of the vibrissae of the attacking colony males did not change the attack behavior of the vibrissectomized animals. These results indicate that the vibrissae are involved in defensive boxing behavior, but play no essential role in the elicitation or maintenance of conspecific attack in the rat.     

Applying a bifactor model to the functions of relational aggression: Associations with hostile attribution biases and difficulties with emotion regulation

Previous research suggests that reactive and proactive aggression likely have distinct underlying mechanisms that uniquely contribute to the perpetration of each as a result of faulty cognitive and emotional processes. Still, very little work has examined the association of the functions of relational aggression with emotion dysregulation and hostile attribution biases. In addition, it is important to examine relational aggression in its pure and co-occurring functions given that past work finds reactive and proactive aggression to occur both jointly and distinctly. Thus, the current study employed a bifactor model to distinguish between pure reactive, pure proactive, and co-occurring relational aggression in emerging adulthood (N = 647, M_age = 19.92, SD = 2.83), a developmental time period for which relational aggression is particularly prominent. To further address gaps in the relational aggression literature, indirect pathway models revealed that relational hostile attribution biases emerged as a concurrent indirect path in the relationship between emotion dysregulation and pure reactive relational aggression. Furthermore, emotion dysregulation was directly positively associated with both pure functions as well as co-occurring relational aggression, and hostile attribution biases for relational provocations were directly associated with both pure functions of relational aggression, though the association was negative for pure proactive and positive for pure reactive relational aggression. Findings highlight the potential influence of emotion dysregulation and attributing hostile intent to social situations on engaging in the different functions of relational aggression.